''Let Me Out'' by Hidden Citizens (Feat. Rånya)

Anticipation came first, an uptick ripple of the heart reflected first in my chest and then in the water. I'd prepared for this moment all morning, from doing some mind-clearing yoga with Dakota to rehearsing my lines lest my tongue run afoul of me again.The one thing left to finish was scrubbing Dakota's stupid note off my back. I should've known she was up to something when she so sweetly offered to do the writing for me. Reaching around awkwardly, I navigated the inked skin blindly, trying to rinse off her teasing line.  This was all a bit too scandalous for me. Innocent little lamb I was not, but if Chiro saw what she'd scrawled I might just die of embarrassment. Chiro wasn't, I wasn't...

I'd just found the space I thought she'd written on when footsteps padded down the worn rock staircase.

With a sudden rush of panic I grabbed the handful of rose petals saved just for this moment and dropped them gently into the steamed spring in front of me. Willing them to stay in place, I very carefully took in one deep breath and closed my eyes to steady my nerves.

When I opened them, Chiro was dropping a slick black cloak to the ground, standing there lean and shaded in damp muscle. The monster-turned-man lifted his dripping shirt as if it were a second skin, gave it a brief shake to rid the worst of the water, and let it fall only to have it suction itself back against his chest. From my steam-swirled vantage point I could see he needed a shave. He swiped a hand through his sandy hair with all the annoyance of a cat who found itself unexpectedly dropped into a pool. But that feline swagger and tiger's grace was still present after he'd removed his boots and started to walk over.

We began talking, and... I wasn't sure if 'well' was the word to describe how it'd gone. I don't think he believed for one second I knew what I was doing, and that made me nervous, got me rambling on all confident about nonsense. Listening to Dakota was a bad idea. Why had I done such a thing, why had I thought to myself, yes, Dakota, taking off my clothes to talk about a serious subject is an excellent strategy? I could've left more on and still had this work, but let myself get talked into the idea of a proper bath. I'd get Chiro's help one way or another, and it didn't have to involve any body parts.

But when that man's hands found my neck I knew Dakota was very right about how powerful the sensation of 'touch' can be, and how intimate, and how binding.

Except, I realized with a flicker of not quite unpleasant fear, that cozy twist in the gut you get when you find yourself liking the way a person smiles, except affection worked both ways.

I didn't know Chiro well at all. Not really. Knew him better than any other demon. He liked cards. He knew my father. He had nearly died in service to him, and to me.

And that was it, I told myself, trying to push the blush off my cheeks with logic and reason. Damn, those fingers could knead my back all day.

I didn't know a lot of deeply personal facts about him. He didn't know a lot of deeply personal facts about me. But we had shared something powerful and meaningful in the Malumbrian Oaks, and I felt it  between us here in the magic-infused underground, this rushing undercurrent of experience and trauma and healing. It didn't have a word. I wasn't certain there was a meaning.

But when I lunged for his hand and he paused, just for a moment, grey eyes not quite cold as they looked into mine, I wondered.

Then he'd gone. I was alone to settle back into the rosy water, splash my hot face and sigh. I was so far in over my head it was a wonder I hadn't drowned yet.

I didn't know how the hell to kill the King, or how to convince him that we shouldn't consummate our eventual marriage on the night of whatever abominable ceremony the demons had concocted for their newly captured brides. I was afraid the usual ways wouldn't work. I'd seen him only three times, and each had been a malignant glimpse in the darkness of his tower.  You don't just lead a pack of hellions and get knocked off because some little shit sticks you with a knife.

Maybe I should've taken my chances with Chiro. For my own sake, I knew I should've.  He wouldn't make me do anything I didn't want to. But there was no way he could protect us right now, and no way I could protect those women.

So there was that.

And that was the reason I still lingered in the water several minutes later, until the creeping warmth reached my bones and I caught myself yawning. At that point I pulled myself onto a barely cooler edge, slid into my clothes without regard for being wet; it was pouring now from the distant hiss and echo and I didn't have anything truly waterproofed for the walk back. Underneath the clothes my hunting knife had rested flat against the copper stone. I skewered one rose petal on its tip, watched the color bruise along the broken soft curves.

I had to get out of here, I thought, tugging the petal down along the sharpened edge until it split in half. That was the only real solution. Get out of this vile land perched two steps from true hell. Unfortunately, the only person, human, I should say, who possibly knew how to do that hadn't contacted me since she'd disappeared with the promise to get me home. Ajax likewise hadn't contacted me since the Hunt's conclusion. I was worried about him, but didn't know how to make a call to the other side. I'd have to talk to Chiro again, something which the King had quite sternly forbade.

And  I'd quite sternly told him too bad, but hadn't pushed back until arranging to meet Chiro today. My bones were warm and tired, but already I could feel the stirrings deep in the marrow that the coming night would be a bad one.

I reached for my boots.

A scratch of claws on tile caught my attention. Shail had risen, pupils round, ears curved forward like leathery bells. With unblinking eyes he watched one of the larger pools. Soundless he sank into a crouch, his belly inches from the ground, clubbed tail lifted into the air so as not to sweep and grind against the floor. The cat watched the still surface another second, clearly watching something hidden from my senses, then darted forward with a hunter's predatory finesse, stopping an inch shy of the white smoke water.

Standing, I gripped my knife tighter, watched one ear flick briefly toward me and return to its focus.

The cat's haunches coiled down, then, in near silence, he launched himself into the water with a wild splash that surged over the edge. A shrill, garbled cry broke through the thrashing bubbles, until Shail's great grey paws slapped the stone. With his neck arched high and proud the cat dragged a massive, toad-like creature from the water. His canines cut into the space below its neck, severing the spinal cord.

Webbed limbs stretched straight, warted skin scrapping off in papery strips as Shail hauled himself over and carried it beside me to eat, it made for a wretched sight. Surely the creature was kin of those down-turned lipless beings who hopped and croaked and whispered in the shadows of fabled Innsmouth. It was a toad of approximately four feet from face to spotted toe.

And yet it wasn't a toad at all. Ragged cloth was fastened around its waist by a rat skull pin. Its front fingers were elongated, curled tightly into distinct fists. When Shail dropped his kill and started to play with it, I got a good look at the ichor-spattered, amphibian face. There was just enough mutation to make my skin crawl, a touch of something human in those horizontal golden eyes, just enough of a ridge to make out a slitted nose, to notice pockets of cheeks and tiny flat teeth.

Shail flipped the carcass onto its back. He pressed a paw down on its stomach. The creature produced a burbled croak, like a squeaker punctured. The cat tensed, then tried it again, but there was no lingering breath in the squashed chest. Tilting his head, the cat seemed almost disappointed, abandoning his snack for a moment to lick himself.

There was something so familiar about those eyes. Something dour, serious, and watchful, like the eyes of those squat children the King kept in his service. I stared down at the dead bloody creature, disgusted by what I was about to do, and then carefully, with the edge of the knife, pried out the eyes and wrapped them up in a piece of cloth I tore from the hem of my shirt. Shail ate the rest.

When the last leg was a tiny freckled protrusion twitching in the crag cat's jaws,  another set of golden eyes blinked to the surface.

And another.

And another.

Something sharp grazed my arm and plinked into the water.

Within seconds dozens of mottled, webbed limbs were reaching for purchase on the ruddy stone floor. Shail picked another one off with a bone-crushing pounce. A thin crude spear bounced off his snout. He hissed. I screeched at him to come. The cat, clutching his prey, darted up the bounding stairs, nearly taking my head off with his tail in the process. I ducked, slipped in barefeet and managed to get my hands out fast enough to keep from breaking my nose.

The creatures came after us, croaking to one another as their long feet slapped the stone. Shail was a speeding grey figure in the expanse of courtyard as I ran into the middle and finally, with a heaving chest, dared look back. Through the haze of hard linear rain all I could see was the low, writhing mass of toad-like imps pouring from the hot springs entrance.

There was a shrill scream in the distance, Shail barreling indoors toward my room, I decided. I ran in that direction, made it as far inside as the hall, where water and organs sprayed the floor. Shail had ripped open his prey and was devouring it in great noisy huffs. Dakota had flattened herself against the wall, the front of her new white tunic dripping with green blood.

Beside her, alone on a groaning bench, sat the Walrus. The old warrior raised his hardened eyes. "What's this about?" he asked.

"You tell me," I said, pointing toward the last bits of creature.

The Walrus leaned over curiously, kicked a meaty bit with his foot, and shrugged. "Dunno what poor bugger he's got. Never seen it before."

"You're gonna see a lot more," I panted. The cut on my arm was a waterlogged stain. "There's an army of those things in the courtyard. Just started coming out of the hot springs."

Dakota swore, already pulling back her blonde hair into a ponytail. "Told you I should've bought that damn sword in the market."

"You don't know how to use it," I groaned. "And you should have something lighter. Your arms'll be toast in two swings."

"Yeah, well, that's two cuts more than none."

"I told you to get a knife."

"I did."

"And?"

Dakota shrugged. "Val lost hers. She wanted to survey the castle, figure out what's what and who's where. I let her borrow mine. Figured I could survive the walk from the bedroom to the springs."

The bulk of the Walrus cut between us. "Ladies," he said, following my footsteps back toward the courtyard. "I don't care who kills the spider, so long as it ends up dead. Tay, this lovely lass tells me you've been making mischief with our dear Prince."

"I'm not," I said, frowning. Dakota flicked congealing goo off her shirt. I didn't need to see her expression to know it was devious. "Saw him for maybe fifteen minutes."

"Long enough scratch the itch," the Walrus said, a wide grin breaking through. "Gods know I've done it quicker with men half as handsome as what you've got."

"We talked and he left," I said flatly.

"Mmhm." Fingers twined in his red beard, Walrus bent far enough over to peer over his stomach at the mess Shail left behind. "Well, I'd like you ladies to go on upstairs," he finished, cracking his neck. "Not because you can't handle a couple toads. Little buggers climb and you're familiar with the state of our windows. Your flock might be in for a nasty surprise."

"You said you didn't know what they are."

The Walrus stretched his chubby arms out in front of him and did a few labored lunges, like he was about to go for his first run in a decade. "Might be coming back to me," he huffed. "Now, do you or do you not know where Chiro went?"

"No."

"More fun for me then," the man replied, and made his way into the rain.

Tempted through we were to follow the retired warrior, we turned Shail around and hustled him up the stairs. "The hell is going on?" Dakota asked, "What are those things? Where's Chiro?" I wished I had an answer.